Not mentioned yet are Neil Asher’s Polity, or the Engines of Light trilogy by Ken MacLeod (or also Learning the World by MacLeood, complete with Alien Space Bats), or the Virga series by Karl Schroeder, or the Marrow books by Robert Reed.
Peter F Hamilton’s Dreaming Void trilogy is mentioned, but not the fact that it is a sequel to two earlier books, Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained , which you really should read first if you are going to jump into the series–even though the trilogy takes place a thousand years later, it contains many of the same characters. (There is also another pair of books that are sequels to the Dreaming Void trilogy.)
Another vote for Peter F Hamilton, especially the “Void Trilogy”. The Void Trilogy is not only my favorite science fiction book, ( I count the 3 incredibly thick novels as one book ), it’s my all time favorite book, period. And I read a lot.
It’s probably better if you read the earlier 2 book series set in the same universe - Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained - first – as there are some continuing characters and the Void books frequently play off the events of those books, but it’s not necessary. But those two books are possibly -collectively-my second favorite books of all time.
I really have never been able to pin down why I love Hamilton’s books as much as I do. I’ve read most of the Iain M Banks Culture series and William’s Dread Empires Fall and I enjoyed them, but they don’t come close to Hamilton.
Quite possibly it’s because he manages to heavily populate his books with characters that are ordinary people rather than the typical cast of military personnel, starship pilots and politicians. And he features interesting and complex female characters, one of the most primary characters in the book is a young female real estate entrepreneur who unwittingly gets sucked into the drama surrounding a local cult. And this epic trilogy includes a storyline set in another universe that reads more like a medieval low magic fantasy, which is nice for the pacing of the book.
And you might like Hamilton’s Nights Dawn Trilogy ( I believe it was initially published as 6 books but then repackaged). It’s pretty awesome if you also like horror novels because it’s really a horror space opera. I enjoyed it at first but then it got a little too gory and intense for my taste. But I’m not big on horror.
Stevens Baxter’s Proxima and Ultima also deliver a good story, with the first book being a more traditional story about the settlement of a distant planet (with a few hints of the multi-verse angle to come) while the second book is more metaphysical.
Baxter is all over the place with me but I also loved Exultant which qualifies as awesome space opera. I didn’t like the other two books in the trilogy but Exultant works fine as a stand-alone novel, frankly I never found the connecting factor that made these books a Trilogy.
I also enjoy Marko Kloos’ Frontlines series. Space infantry, with the North American Alliance battling the Sino-Russian armies for control of colony worlds in our local galactic sector. Until aliens pose a common threat . . .
Try C.J. Cherryh’s Chanur series, starting with Pride of Chanur.
Several different alien races live in uneasy harmony. This is disrupted when a new intelligent species is found - humans! Unusually, the story is told entirely from the point of view of one of the alien races, the lion-like Hani.
Very fast paced, lots of action, some very interesting ideas.
I’d fourth Peter Hamilton’s Commonwealth series (first one in the series was Pandora’s Star, then Judas Unchained, then others), as an absolutely phenomenal cosmos-spanning space opera. If you like really hard sci-fi, the tech gets pretty handwavey, but a lot of it (neural and cellular augmentation, god-like AI, re-lifing and immortality) are plausible enough future tech they appear in a lot of other works.
I’d second Iain Banks’ Culture books and anything by Verner Vinge too.
I haven’t seen Charlie Stross’ Accelerando mentioned yet, so thought I’d throw it in - it’s only the one book, but well worth it, as it’s one of the few to look at the actual time of great-and-accelerating technological change instead of just taking it as given that we have god-and-magic level technology already.
I’d also recommend Alaistair Reynold’s Revelation Space as another single-book space opera well worth a read.
I was going to mention Cherryh and Weber, but Weber wrote the Honor Harrington stories mostly in the 90s, and Cherryh’s main universe, Alliance-Union Space, she began writing about in the 70s and 80s. So I assume the OP has already read all that both authors have available to offer.
Mine as well. I still think of Brin as a “new” author. Like John Varley (and shut up about The Ophiuchi Hotline being forty years old).
But I need to concede science fiction has kept moving on since I was young. Somebody posted a list of this year’s Hugo nominations and I didn’t even recognize the authors.
Don’t get me started about hearing Nirvana played on classic rock stations.
Oh yeah, I know what you mean about the tech in Hamilton novels. Personally, I don’t like it when the storyline gets bogged down with too many technical details. And one of the things that I really like about the Commonwealth Universe novels is that space flight isn’t the primary form of transportation. Yes, there’s a fair amount of space flight in the books and space flight has a place in that universe but the characters don’t need spaceships to travel between planets. It’s a small detail that improves the pacing of the books.
One of the things I love about Hamilton is he’s really good with character development and he’ll spend a lot of ink on scenes that don’t have any purpose other than the development of a minor character, and his books have a lot of minor characters. This is one of the reasons that these are my favorite books ever but I’m also aware that some people see this as a bug and not a feature.
I haven’t seen this tendency in his latest books and I worried that he might have anew editor. It’s happened to authors I love before.
Wow. Well, no, what you see is what you get. If you don’t care for it by now, give up and go look for someone else.
Far’s I’m concerned, McDevitt is GREAT. One of the best writers of modern SF. Your comment is literally the first negative thing I’ve EVER read about his work.
I don’t know… it just hasn’t grabbed me yet. Nothing particularly wrong with it, but it’s just starting kind of slow… at least compared to Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War” or Corey’s “Leviathan Awakes”.
The Exultant (Destiny’s Children) trilogy is part of the vast Xeelee Sequence universe, which starts at the Big Bang and finishes in another universe altogether. Most of the Xeelee stories are written from a restricted point of view, so you don’t get to see the bigger picture - but it is possible to fit them all together, like a jigsaw.
I enthusiastically put Corey’s Expanse series at the top of my list. And Hamilton’s Commonwealth series right behind.
I should comment that I’m normally a “plot first and characters second” type of reader, but both Corey and Hamilton deliver such fascinating characters that if you’re a “character first” type of reader you’ll also love these series.
Becky Chamber’s books were mentioned above. I only have read the first one ("… Angry Planet") so I can’t comment on both. I’m saving the second on my Kindle for an overseas flight coming up.
I think the Liaden series qualifies as well (well, I liked it, and you’ll get my Vor off my cold, dead hands). You can get some for free from Baen, then if you like it get the rest.
I agree–the first two especially rank among my favorite sf books or series (and remind me somewhat of another of my favorites, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos (which, though not less than 10 years old, deserves an honorable mention.))